Wow!! Not clearing as EXP on a Tue HKG-LAX... Interesting to say the least. I'm off on my own journey in two weeks. Hoping the waitlist clears earlier than your experiences. Glad the PE seats were tolerable at least.

Cheers!

T-100 hr. upgrade cleared on SFO-JFK. They've been offering C space on the flight for the past three weeks too. Was tempted to use one, but glad I held out as well.

Actually since beginning of the year it's been par for the course with for me....esp on LAX-HKG. Something has definitely changed. Easily clearing LAX-HKG and HKG-LAX mid-week (Tue, Wed, Thu) which use to be relatively easy is no longer and not exactly sure why. I have heard several theories having to do with highly competitive last minute discounted business fares being offered by both AA and CX (as a code share) to AA accommodating oversold CX flights. In nearly all six of my LAX to or from HKG flights this year the flights were all J7 and open seat map until 5-7 days prior to flight and then J goes down to a few or zero and seat map fills up at T-48. In all the days I have missed it (I am EXP with around 25K last 12-month EQD) I have seen maybe one or two clear on the airport and the upgrade list at 20-30 strong.

In fact, I just switch last week to the HKG-DFW and DFW-HKG flights and in my limited observation AA125/AA126 are now easier to clear that HKG-LAX.

Again, not to sure exactly why but all fingers point to it having something to do with code-sharing or cross selling or competitive pricing to CX.

The PE seats are definitely an upgrade from Y. The service from FA's is not. They are overwhelmed with the sheer number of passengers in the rear of that 77W.

Good luck with your upgrades.

Thanks for the heads-up on this matter... Will keep and eye out on things in the coming days. Maybe it time to hold out myself for upselling my reservation into J if there's a deal to be had then apply the SWU.

I've heard this exact sentiment as well. Too bad they don't have at least 2 FA that are just dedicated to PE. The pricing aa.com is asking for this fare class is insane at times. Especially for flights connecting to it as often the tickets are at full Y fare class. Sometime more expensive than J or F fares!

Flying DFW-HKG on Monday, 4 February with SWU waitlisted. Just checked EF and finally the flight is C7 (all of the flights this last week have been wide open and go to C7 48 hours in advance). Call exp desk and she says there is no availability. ...? Not really worried as the cabin is not even half full but just don't get the lack of logic.

I'm confused by your statement. I just checked EF and see that for your flight C0 is for the flight. What's available is: F2 A2 J7 R7 D7 I7 W7 P7 Y7 B0 H7 K7 M7 L7 G7 V7 S7 N7 Q7 O7 E7

Were you intending to me that the "Biz" cabin selection (J, R, D, and I) have been at 7's?

I'm bored watching TV, so I looked too - if you look at a connection, say DCA-DFW-HKG, the flight shows C7, but alone shows C0. I know married segments don't exist with upgrade space, so it's just phantom availability of some sort.

Yea that's a very well known ExpertFlyer "issue" that when searching connections the AA system sometimes returns bogus false positives for C space.

Nevertheless DFW-HKG on Monday is now truly C7, so I would call AA back and get the upgrade processed.

I finally got my EF email at 3 AM and also woke up to see that the upgrade had cleared. I'm quite familiar with the married segment logic for revenue tickets but really never even thought that they would use the same illogical conditions for releasing upgrade inventory. I'm flying MIA-DFW-HKG and yes, last night the married segment search showed C7 availability on the DFW-HKG segment. Maybe we can address that issue with expert flyer that they are displaying available inventory on married segments but AA is only releasing seats based on their single segment inventory. Revenue management at its finest…

I think ExpertFlyer has previously said that AA is returning the results when queried this way, so not much they can do but suggest searching by segment.

Both Mrs. Vernon and I are EXP.
Jan 7 - AA 238 LAX to JFK, no upgrade.
Jan 22 - AA 341 JFK to LAX, both upgraded at 100 hours.
Feb 1 - AA 238 LAX to JFK, both upgraded at 100 hours and both upgraded to F at the gate. Not sure why we were picked for the gate upgrade instead of other passengers who paid full fare for J (not that we are complaining).

Yep, EF is well aware of the issue and has said over and over that when searching connections AA's system will sometimes return garbage results. It's just imperative to search segment by segment as this solves everything. AA definitely doesn't release married segment C space, any positive C space you may see when searching a connection is 100% invalid if the flight is C0 when looking at the segment by itself.

Odds of clearing NRT out of ORD? Do those usually clear or what is the experience for that.